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Tag: Taylor Drew

The decades following the
end of the Second World War marked a significant period of development for
Japanese manga. The genres of manga became divided between two primary genres, shounen, and shoujo, for boys and girls respectively, and the art of telling
longer running stories became mainstream practice. As well, women began to
enter the manga industry rapidly during the 1950’s and 1960’s, which would
cause a significant shift in the stories that were told and how they were
presented within shoujo manga that
was released (Prough 2011:46-48). The stories that were produced in this new
style followed patterns of using exotic locations outside of Japan as the main
setting and expressing the emotions involved in human relationships, often love
triangles between the main character, the heroine, and two boys that she was
close to. They also employed a drawing style that remains recognized as a style
for shoujo manga. Despite the many
changes that took place, it was not until the 1970’s that female manga artists
would begin to experiment with the portrayal of kissing and sex in shoujo manga for older teenagers (Prough
2011: 53). However, these initial intimate scenes were not between two people
of the opposite sex but rather between two boys.

This new genre of shoujo manga, known as yaoi, shounen ai, and/or boys love depending on time period and context,
offered a new type of story to be consumed by the girls that were reading manga
at that time. Even though this new genre of shoujo
manga was about the love between two boys, it was not about portraying a
realistic and loving relationship between two men. Instead, the relationships
within boys love manga were symbolic of things desired and things experienced
by Japanese girls and women; they were a way for restricted individuals to
express their sexuality in text. While the genre has gone through many
stylistic changes, especially in recent years, this symbolism can still be seen
even in more recent works of boys love manga. By understanding the thematic and
stylistic origins of boys love manga and by analyzing some more recent works, it
will be possible to see how this symbolism continued on through various dynamic
changes in the genre while also developing into something new to accommodate
for continuing critic from the gay community and its allies in Japan.

The
Origin of Boys Love

The boys love genre saw its origins in the early 1970’s as a
type of mainstream shoujo manga. At
the time known as shounen-ai, these
stories followed the romance between two beautiful boys. The appearance of
these beautiful boys is striking because of the androgynous nature of their
appearances; with their long flowing hair and slender bodies their gender
appears as ambiguous to the untrained eye. In addition to their genderless
appearances, when engaging in intimate activity, the panels of the manga were
placed in a way that made their sexual actions even more ambiguous by never
directly showing insertion of a penis or other obviously male occurrences
(Prough 2011:53). While the appearance of these beautiful boys may bring to
question the true nature of their sex, interviews with artists of the genre
suggest that in their eyes at least, there is no doubt that these beautifully
drawn androgynous boys are male (Welker 2011: 213). None the less, it is likely
that the ambiguous appearances of the boys likely helped facilitate an
understanding of the characters for the readers.

Additionally, the early
settings of these shounen-ai manga
were placed in exotic locations just like other shoujo manga of the time. Not unlike other shoujo manga, these exotic locations were typically historical
Europe in aristocratic families, all-boys boarding schools, or both. Again like
other shoujo manga of the time, the
focus was on the emotions and connections made by the main character to others
around him.The combination of
foreign location and androgynous boys allowed for the mainstream shoujo manga readers to enjoy these
early shounen ai stories by
distancing them from the sexual content
but also by being relatable which was an overall important accomplishment for
manga because intimacy had never been expressed in such a way in manga before (Prough
2011: 54).

By
the 1980’s, shounen ai had left
mainstream shoujo manga magazines and
began publishing in specialty magazines for the genre. With this new vein of
publishing the genre took on a new name courtesy of the publishing industry,
becoming the English “boys love” that is primarily used in this essay. Stories
about the love between two boys also began to thrive in another market, that of
doujinshi, or self-published
fanfiction (Prough 2011: 54). In this instance, these self-published works were
manga though doujinshi as a term
refers to all fan-published material. Within these fan-made works, the genre
was known as yaoi, an acronym that
stands for “no climax, no ending, no meaning.” This terminology represents the
way that these stories were written without much thought or plot. In this case
of boys love doujinshi they were
typically a quick and steamy after between the two main characters. These fan-made works were often much more
sexually explicit than their counterparts in shounen-ai were originally and as already stated, their sexual
encounter was overall the main point of the story. Many of these fan-made works are now often
based off stories in shounen manga,
with those released in the Weekly Shounen Jump magazine being especially
popular (Saito 2011: 180). Some of these titles include Gintama, Naruto, One Piece, and The Prince of Tennis. The
authors of these particular doujinshi
displayed and still do display a special ability to shift the friendly bonding
of shounen manga and turn it into a
romantic encounter between two teenage boys. The development of these doujinshi as separate to published boys
love is important because of the way they influenced setting and also sexual
content in commercially published works. Boys love manga was already evolving
continuously right from the start based on competition between the producers
and the consumers.

Experiencing Sex in Boys Love

The boys love manga that was produced from the 1990’s until
today has been able to become much more sexually explicit in part due to the
influence of the market of self-published manga (McLelland 2000: 19). While not
all boys love manga has sexually explicit content it is very common and much
more common than it was in the past. The role of the beautiful boy has also
changed. While most of the boys shown in boys love manga, there is less
emphasis on androgynous features than there was before; there is little doubt
by anyone that the characters are male, even without clear display of a penis.
A result of this is a division between roles that have become more clearly
visible to the readers, a division of roles that is essential to understand current
boys love narratives about sex more clearly.

In the vast majority of boys love manga, the
relationship between the two boys is understood in terms of their individual
roles as either the uke or the seme. The seme is recognized as the dominant, aggressive, male role in the
relationship and the uke is seen as
the passive feminine role (Saito 2011: 184). In this dichotomy, while both boys
are more clearly masculine in their features, the uke typically has more feminine features such as longer hair and
larger eyes as well as being more emotional while the seme shows more masculine traits. The manga The World’s Greatest First Love, by Shingiku Nakamura, is a good
example of this type of character description. The story follows two men that
reconnect ten years after a high school love gone wrong in the editing
department of a publishing company where they are now both employed. The seme, Masamune, has a squared chin and
always remains relatively expressionless even in some of their more steamy
encounters.

On the other hand, the uke, Ritsu,has a more triangular chin and easily blushes in romantic
situations because of embarrassment (Nakamura 2015). While not all boys love
manga change the appearance between the two roles to such an extent, it is
usual for the features of the uke to
be more cute and feminine than those of the seme
both in appearance, mannerisms, and even personal skills and interests. These
personality traits as assigned by role are prominent in most boys love manga that
has been published in recent years by commercial publishers.

These appearances and
personality traits also translate to what sexual role each character performs. The
more masculine and dominant seme
plays the role of the penetrator, and the more passive and feminine uke plays the role of the penetrated
(Saito 2011: 184). By framing the relationship between the two boys is this
way, the authors of the manga are placing them within a very stereotypical
heterosexual relationship structure. The more masculine and dominant seme is almost exclusively the character
that initiates a relationship and then sexual contact, sometimes initiated by
platonic teasing or despite his insecurities about his sexuality. When the two
boys inevitably have sex, the uke will
be on the bottom, usually facing the seme
and laying underneath him. The story No
Touching At All by Kou Yoneda is an example of a story that follows this format.
The main character Shima is a closeted gay man that has moved from his old
company to a new company after a relationship with a straight man gone sour. He
is therefore timid and shy because of his past experiences and catches the
attention of the laid back and apparently straight section chief Togawa. Togawa
is initially interested in Shima platonically because of his cute behavior but
eventually falls in love with him (Yoneda 2011). The first time they have sex
is somewhat of an accident and uses sexual actions that are stereotypical to
heterosexual sex. The seme, in this
case, Togawa, is the dominant role in the relationship that is leading on the
relationship despite Shima’s hesitations. None the less it is clear that even
though their first sexual experience happens largely by mistake, the experience
was still pleasurable for both people involved.

By placing boys love
relationships into the frame of a heteronormative relationship, the readers are
able to understand what is happening between the two characters on an emotional
level, but in a sense, the couple is not understood within traditional
heterosexual relationship values. Instead, the boys love couple is seen as
functioning within a loving and equal relationship that cannot be experienced
outside of their world (Saito 2011: 180). While the roles between the uke and the seme may seem to be quite strict for determining character
personality and sex roles, the fact that they are both able to feel immense
pleasure from sex is an important aspect of sex that is presented in boys love
manga. As a genre that is directed to straight women, the perceived equality
portrayed within the boys love genre is said to be a response to traditional
sexual restrictions for Japanese women (Welker 2014: 267). Therefore the
narratives in boys love manga became a place for both the authors and readers
to express their sexuality freely. In a society that there is still great
pressure for women get married and have children within a certain time frame
which puts a heavy restriction the sexual liberty of women who are expected to
be primarily mothers and wives within a limited frame of time.

In comparison, men have
more freedom sexually in Japan even though they are also expected to get
married (McLelland 2000: 14). In this sense, the boy becomes the perfect canvas
for describing the ideal sexual situation, that of mutual pleasure, for women
because men traditionally have more sexual freedom than women. While it is true
that the appearances of the boys have become less ambiguous, the placement of
the panels in the manga still leaves a lot to the imagination. That with the
combination of the more feminine features of the uke makes it easy to imagine how a woman could relate to and desire
what this character may experience. A sexual experience between the two
partners as portrayed in many boys love manga is, therefore, able to illustrate
the possibility of giving and receiving pleasure without fear of shame. This
sex acts as an extension of love as well as a confirmation of feelings and is a
very important aspect of sexuality in boys love manga.

While many interactions in
boys love manga are focused on the mutual development of feelings between the seme and the uke through normal means, there are also works that are much more
violent in nature that seem to work in contrast to this image of pure and
mutual love. These aggressive sexual situations occur within a variety of
different scenarios that usually involve the negative emotions of the seme or an outside individual that has
enacted some type of violent act, psychological and/or physical towards the uke. For example, in No Touching At All, Shima’s initial fear
of being in a relationship with Togawa and people discovering that he is gay
stems from the sour relationship that he experienced at his previous workplace
because of his love for a straight man. There is also a point in the manga
where this fear does not allow him to trust Togawa’s love and the two have
rather aggressive sex for the “last time” in which they do not face each other
in mutual pleasure but instead Shima is used as a release for frustration and
violently taken from behind (Yoneda 2011). Another much more graphic and
violent example of aggression in boys love manga can be seen in the series that
in English known as Caste Heaven by
Chise Ogawa. As the title of the manga alludes to, the main characters of the
series attend a Japanese high school that the students run using a caste
system. The main character Azusa has always been the King of the caste but when
the next caste game begins he is tricked by the Jack, Karino, and plummets to
the lowest level of the caste after being pulled from the game by a situation
where he is gang-raped by a group of boys at the school. His subjugation
continues as he is targeted by students who could not go against him when he
was King. Karino, who has become the King, promises to protect him on the
condition that Azusa will become his personal sex slave (Ogawa 2015). Put into
this role Azusa is subjugated over and over again to the whims of Karino who
simultaneously protects him and sexually abuses him as his own personal public
toilet. In this type of situation, the dominance of the seme towards the uke is
exaggerated and intensified, but they still fit into the general guidelines of
the roles, even though Azusa is originally portrayed as being dominant.

Albeit disturbing to
certain readers, this type of story is also essential in understanding sexual
narratives in boys love manga. Unlike the example of Shima and Togawa who
symbolized sex that was desired, the type of violence experienced by Azusa acts
as a way for readers to become spectators of violence rather than be victimized
by such an incident (McLelland 2000: 20). The acts committed against Azusa by
Karino can be seen as a method of revenge as well as a way to subjugate an
inferior to elevate status. While Azusa begins by appearing more dominant, he
gradually gains more and more characteristics that are associated with women, and
his new status as subjugated may reflect the way that certain Japanese women
feel about the possibility of their position. By being the viewer instead of
the victim, reading about these actions becoming committed against a boy in the
story may provide the readers with comfort or some type of twisted empowerment
by acting as a fictionalized revenge against a system that works against them
in cases of sexual violence. As Caste
Heaven is an ongoing series, it is hard to say how the story will end, but
if using other manga of this style and by this author as a guide, the story
will end in either a mutual love or it may really just be a case of sexual
abuse with no alternative motive by Karino. These options bring to question the
feelings of the authors as they write these types of stories; are they merely a
kink or is there some deeper and darker frustration that fuels their creation?
Regardless of what the answer may be, the portrayals of aggressive sex in boys
love manga as violent, and abuse can be seen as symbolic of the suppression
felt by many Japanese women in Japan.

Boys
Love Moving Forward

With increasing popularity and stories that reach out to
many types of female readers, the boys love genre has been able to expand far
beyond being a subgenre of shoujo manga.
While unstable, the market has expanded to include many different forms of boys
love narratives including anime adaptations, novels, PC and video games,
voice-only drama CD’s, live action movies, and other boys love related
character merchandise as sold in stores such as Animate in Ikebukuro. As already explained, sexually explicit
content as also moved out of doujinshi
and into publisher released boys love manga.
While boys love films are not new, there has been a great about of
recent success, especially with the release of the movie adaptation of No Touching At All last year that this
year was rereleased for additional screening (Taiyou Garden 2015). This level
of success has likely contributed to an increased released of live-action
adaptations of manga such as Seven Days and
Wait for Me at Udagawachō. With the
release of live action films that are more popular, the fans and genre of boys
love will only become more visible from now on. None the less, these fans
remain to stigmatize in Japanese society until today because they are
essentially seen as consuming gay pornography. This stigmatization makes a full
evaluation of the boys love market impossible because many fans consume boys
love in secret as not to be shamed by their acquaintances that are also not
fans (Saito 2011: 176). This expansion also represents an increased importance
of the symbolism and representations of perceived equality in boys love manga
as well as approaching issues of gender fluidity.

This
increased attention has also affected the types of narratives that are seen
within boys love manga today. It was already shown how the development of doujinshi influenced the amount of
explicit sexual activities shown in boys love manga, but the exposure to
critics also affected the narratives that were being told. These types of criticisms
can be cited as far back as the early 1990’s to both gay men in Japan and their
supporters criticizing what they claimed as completely fictional and
unrealistic representations of homosexual relationships (Nagaike 2015: 65).
More and more often, the main characters of boys love manga are openly gay from
the start, such as Shima who was previously described. Shima’s situation also
shows an increased representation of some of the problems and fears that gay
men in Japan may have to face such as alienation at the workplace (Yoneda
2011). Previously published stories often diminished or ignored the seriousness
of these issues real life and important issues. While No Touching At All displays some of these improvements, other works
have taken it a step further, perhaps as the pioneers of something completely
new. One such work is called Koi
Monogatari, meaning “love story” in English. This story is told through the
perspective of Hasegawa, a high school student who discovers that one of his
classmates, Yamato, is gay when he catches him stroking the hair of one of his
friends. Given his carefree personality, Hasegawa is initially shocked because
his friend is the subject of interest but gradually gets to know Yamato and
starts to wish for his happiness (Tagura 2015). In becoming friends with
Yamato, Hasegawa is able to learn more about some very real struggles and
insecurities that gay young men have and comes to realize that there is nothing
wrong with being gay because that is just the way they are; they cannot do
anything to change it even if they want to. This narrative suggests that there
are authors in the boys love community that are starting to take the lived
experiences of gay men very seriously and are being to incorporate that
narrative into the genre through an understandable shoujo manga style lens.

Conclusion

From the beginnings of shoujo
manga following the Second World War and the introduction to shounen ai narratives in the early 1970’s,
boys love as a genre has gone through many dynamic changes since its creation.
The genre that began sexual expression in shoujo
manga developed over the years from ambiguously gendered boys that
participated in equally ambiguous sex, to some less ambiguous and much more
sexually explicit. Even with that level of change, boys love as a genre was
still able to maintain the symbolism that it originated with, the narratives of
expressing restricted female sexually and subjugation. These narratives have
remained relatively unchanged as since through Shima and Togawa, Ritsu and
Masamune, and Karino and Azusa. Boys love has always been a way for women to
voice their dissatisfaction and also a way for them to experience their desire
through fiction. More recently, the genre has expanded the way that it has
reached its audience, making boys love have even more influence over the way in
which participants express their sexuality through fiction. However, the
dynamic changes of the boys love genre are not stopping with just increased
styles of expression but also increasing the type of narratives that are being
told. While the genre may not be and may never be able to be completely
embraced by gay men in Japan given its shoujo
feeling, this does not discount the fact that more and more narratives that
express the sexuality of gay men in Japan are being released such as the story
of Yamato by Tohru Tagura. All of these narratives, regardless of homophobic
tones or not, are an important representation and expression of realities and
desires of sexual equality in Japan. While it cannot be understood now how far
the influence of boys love will expand, the genre is without a doubt an
important place for those that are restricted to express sexuality without worry
or fear.